Happy New Year! and Merry Christmas :)

We're back in the swing of "normal life." The past 3 weeks were busy, but amazing! I hate that its all over. BUT, we had a super fun Christmas, an awesome 2 weeks in Texas AND we have a 1 year old! So 2012 started with a bang and hopefully that means this year is gonna be rockin :) My goal is to do a separate post for each event because I have a gazillion pictures...so hopefully this week I'll have some nights to Blog.

Christmas definitely took the cake this year. I know I've had some great Christmases, but this year, with a 2.5 year old, man oh man! It was so fun watching Raya open presents and hear all the commentary that came with it. She was full of pure excitement. Like true, "OH WOW!" and "Oh my gosh!" phrases we're coming out of her mouth left and right. It was so great. Her facial expressions and the enjoyment that was written all over her body was priceless. I've never had such a fun Christmas. We made cookies, talked about Santa, made sure to be "Nice and not Naughty." All the things you think make Christmas- yah, we probably did it. And because I'm OBSESSED with Christmas its not hard to see why I loved every minute of this season. The kids got A LOT of presents. In fact I'm pretty sure she's been opening presents for over a month, so I'm working on how to help her understand that opening presents like this doesn't happen year round. She loves opening presents. The 25 Days of Christmas was a total hit and, lucky for her, her baby brother really didn't care too much about opening any so she got to open all his too. We opened presents Christmas Eve at my Aunt's house. Then all day Christmas Day. Then had 2 more Christmases when we got to Texas, so Raya got lots of present opening opportunities :) Here's some pictures for your viewing enjoyment:

 We started Christmas morning at our house

After presents at our house we went to my Mom's (aka Santa's house ;)

 Last year Raya got a Mercedes and this year they got this! They are some lucky kids :)

He clearly was enjoying his 1st Christmas!

Coolest kids on the block

Apparently global warming is in FULL EFFECT. Its not weird to have weather like this in Cali for Christmas Day, but it was also this warm when we were in Texas! Wth?!

Christmas Dinner with Uncle B

Just a few of her presents: A princess house and sleeping bag/pillow. And headphones for her iPad. She had a great Christmas. And the next morning Kallen was enjoying them just as much :)

I was so thankful to be with family, to watch my kids enjoy 3 Christmas with all their grandparents, for beautiful weather and for beautiful children!  It was an incredible holiday season and I feel like the luckiest girl in the world :)